


The mermaid au no one asked for

by probablynotaduck



Category: Dredd (2012), Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Blood, Can be read without watching Dredd, Drugs, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mermaid techie, Techie Needs A Hug, kylux adjacent
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2021-01-14
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:01:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26199010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/probablynotaduck/pseuds/probablynotaduck
Summary: What do you do when you find out your new job is actually a drug front using a captive mermaid's blood to make said drugs? You probably shouldn't ask Matt because he has no idea and will probably do something pretty stupid.
Relationships: Clan Techie (Dredd)/Matt the Radar Technician
Comments: 9
Kudos: 79





	1. First day complications

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea what inspired this but I decided I really wanted to write it. I have no idea how long it's gonna end up but I'll try to write quickly. Let me know what you think in the comments and I'll get a second chapter up as soon as I can!

First days were always stressful. Of course, stress just made Matt more likely to have an outburst, and being more likely to have an outburst just made him more stressed. Not an ideal situation. Still, he was going to make today a success. At least, his therapist told him he would make the day a success if he just practiced the breathing techniques she wanted him to use. Like those were supposed to help. Matt scoffed, then adjusted his blocky glasses and took a step forward into his new life as a technician for Peach Trees Pharmaceuticals. 

The lobby of the towering building was absolutely spotless. The tiled floor gleamed under fluorescent lights. The walls were white and shiny, only broken up by tasteful portraits of some of the company’s higher ups. They all looked like pretentious douchebags if you asked Matt. 

A throat being politely cleared drew Matt’s attention to a reception desk made of polished wood. Probably made of oak or whatever wood was most expensive, Matt mused. With the desk and the plush chairs and singular couch this lobby would probably cost more to rent than his whole apartment. That was why he was here though, these people were paying a fortune just to have him run maintenance on some water filtration system. Child’s play. 

“Excuse me?” The woman behind the reception desk was raising an eyebrow at him now. “Can I help you?” She kept a polite tone while simultaneously making it clear all of Matt’s gawking was wasting her time. 

Matt cleared his throat much less politely than the woman had and awkwardly walked over to her. “Yeah, my name’s Matt. I’m supposed to start today. I think I’m supposed to meet with someone called ‘Ma-Ma’?” He really tried to keep a neutral tone when he said the name but it was just too weird for him to stay entirely straight faced. 

The receptionist, Natalie, her name tag said, frowned and looked him up and down. Her lips pinched but he must have passed her inspection because she nodded once and held out a key card to him. “She’s expecting you. Take the elevator to the two hundredth floor, you’ll need to use that key to get there.” With that she turned back to her computer and began typing with her perfectly manicured nails.

Matt quietly backed away, and with one last look around the room, headed towards the large bronze doors of the elevator. He hit the up button and waited, listening to the quiet whooshing of the elevator descending to meet him. He tapped his foot a few times but it echoed loudly enough through the lobby that Natalie stopped typing. He glanced back and caught her glaring at him. He quickly stopped tapping. So much for a welcoming environment. 

The elevator doors slid soundlessly open in front of Matt and he stepped inside. The elevator was larger than his entire fucking bathroom. Rolling his eyes, Matt looked for a button to push to choose his floor, but found a touch screen instead. Of course it was a fucking touch screen. He sighed and typed in two hundred. The elevator beeped and the screen asked him to please insert his clearance card. Matt shoved the key Natalie had given him into the little slot and waited until the screen told him to remove it.

With the elevator finally on its way up Matt leaned against the wall and relaxed. He let out a long breath as he watched the floor numbers tick upwards. He didn’t need to worry so much, he reminded himself. Today was just paperwork and orientation. He wouldn’t actually be working on anything. Then again maybe that was worse. Today was the day he’d need to make a good impression before being left to do his work. Sure, he was already hired, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t get himself fired on the first day. He’d done it before.

Honestly, with his track record Matt was pretty surprised Peach Trees had hired him at all. There must have been a lot of applicants for a job that paid so well. Especially at one of the most successful companies in the country. Working for Peach Trees was a dream job, even if it meant seeing Natalie every morning. If he could keep this job long term he could finally move out of his piece of shit apartment and into some place nicer.

Matt was lost in his musings when the elevator slowed to a stop and the doors slid open. He shook himself and shoved off the wall, exiting the elevator. He heard the doors shut again behind him but was too busy examining his new surroundings. He was standing at the end of a short hallway, an imposing set of double doors stood at the other end, solid and just as shiny as everything else. The hallway had two couches opposite each other by the doors, and then was lined with chairs that matched the couches. There were identical, dim, light fixtures on the wall between each chair which only added to the heavy atmosphere. 

Matt found he didn’t really want to walk down the hallway. He balled his fists and grimaced. Come on man, he told himself, think of your new apartment. Think of tickets to see The Knights of Ren live. That did it for him. No way was he passing up a job that could let him see his idol live and in person. Matt set his jaw and strode as confidently as he could down the hallway.  
There was a nameplate on the left door that simply read, “Ma-Ma”. Again with the tacky name. Matt resisted another eye roll and knocked on the door. 

The door swung open into the room, much to Matt’s surprise. He recovered quickly and stepped inside. He saw a man shut the door behind him in his periphery but was mostly focused on the woman sitting in front of a tall glass wall overlooking the city. The view was probably impressive but Matt’s focus was elsewhere. This woman was terrifying. 

Ma-Ma, at least Matt assumed this had to be Ma-Ma, was the scariest looking motherfucker he had ever met. She had some badass scars on her face that Matt simultaneously did and did not want to know the story behind. Her hair was short, and choppy in a purposeful way. A tattoo wound its way up her neck and stopped at her cheek, though Matt was pretty sure it continued past the collar of her shirt. The part that had Matt stopped dead though was her eyes.

Matt had never really bought into that whole, the eyes are windows to the soul, shit, but this woman’s eyes looked like they had seen hell and hell had blinked. All of Matt’s first day nerves returned at once. He swallowed nervously and took a half step backwards before catching himself. “Um,” He cleared his throat. Was he supposed to introduce himself? Did he wait for her to talk? “My name’s Matt?” It came out like a question. “It’s my first day.”

The woman, Ma-Ma, nodded before straightening up in her chair. “Welcome to Peach Trees, Matt.” She emphasized his name in a way Matt really didn’t like. He shifted his feet. “I have some paperwork for you to sign and then you’ll be shown what you need to do. I don’t normally escort new hires on their tour, but there are some things I want to make very clear to you.” Matt nodded mutely. 

Ma-Ma reached into a drawer in the desk she sat at and pulled out a rather thick stack of papers. There was no chair for Matt so he just awkwardly stood in front of the desk and squinted through his smudged glasses at the legal jargon. Luckily he didn’t seem to need to interpret the papers himself as Ma-Ma spoke again.

“These are NDAs. Do you know what an NDA is?” Matt nodded. “Good, then you know you are not to breathe a word of what goes on here to anyone else once you sign these.” She flipped through the pages before pausing and thrusting a pen at Matt. 

“Shouldn’t I read the form before I sign it?” Matt’s voice was not as confident as he’d wanted it to be. Ma-Ma raised an eyebrow at him.

“I wasn’t aware I was paying you to read. Here I thought you were a technician whose job is to do what I say.” For one moment Matt was absolutely confident he was about to be fired, or killed, or both. Luckily Ma-Ma didn’t move or say anything else. She simply held the pen out to him expectantly. Matt debated for less than a second before taking the pen and signing god only knew what. 

When he finished Ma-Ma flipped through a few more pages before gesturing to another line. “Sign here.” There was no room for argument in her tone. Matt signed the page. This went on for a few minutes until they’d reached the end of the packet. Matt set the pen down and took a step back from the desk while Ma-Ma tucked the papers he’d signed into a manila folder and stuck them in a different drawer.

“Now then.” Ma-Ma pushed her chair back and stood up, “I’d imagine you’d like to know what exactly you’ll be doing for us.” She stepped around the desk and headed towards the door, already being held open by the doorman. “This way.” She gestured for Matt to follow. To Matt’s surprise the man holding the door followed as well. All three of them filed back into the elevator and Ma-Ma punched in the floor number. Matt felt the elevator begin to descend and glanced at the screen to see they were heading to floor negative five. Apparently two hundred stories weren’t enough. The building had a basement too.

With the elevator on its way Ma-Ma spoke again. “This is Kay.” She gestured to the man who’d held the door open. “He’s my head of security, I never go anywhere without him. If you see him, it means you fucked up in a big way.” Matt nodded, staring at the tall man warily. Matt was used to being taller than everyone else so Kay being slightly taller than him was disconcerting. 

Kay must have noticed him staring, because he made eye contact with Matt and held it. “You got a staring problem or something?”

“Nope.” Matt quickly stared at the ground.

“Keep it that way.” Kay sounded like he was just looking for a reason to pick a fight with Matt, and while normally Matt fought with everyone, this place was freaky enough he really didn’t want to be on anyone’s bad side. 

“Now that you boys have gotten introduced I’m sure there’ll be no further problems.” Ma-Ma was the shortest person in the elevator but she definitely had the strongest presence. Matt straightened up self consciously and caught Kay doing the same out of the corner of his eye.

The elevator dinged after an uncomfortable eternity and everyone filed out with Matt in the rear. This part of the building was much less glamorous. The walls were concrete and water stained, the lights flickered, and the floor tiles needed replacing. Matt felt himself relax instantly as he took in his slightly grimy surroundings. 

Ma-Ma walked a short ways down the hall before stopping at a pair of swinging metal doors. They reminded Matt of the kind you’d see leading to a kitchen in a restaurant. “Before we go any further, I’d like to ask you a question Matt. Out of all our applicants why do you think I chose you for this job?” 

Matt frowned, thinking of an answer. It certainly wasn’t his job history or any words of recommendation from past employers. “Because of my top grades in college?” Did people even look at those?

Ma-Ma shook her head. “I chose you because you are a nobody.” Matt frowned again, shocked. He was about to protest but Ma-Ma held up a finger to shush him before continuing. “The NDAs you signed are legally binding, but if you break any of them, if you breathe a word of anything you see here to the outside world, we will not need to take legal action. My enforcers will make sure you never speak to anyone ever again. Do I make myself clear?”

Matt felt like the breath had been knocked from his lungs. Did she just imply she’d have him killed? A hand on his back shoved him forward and he whipped his head around to see Kay had taken a position between him and the elevator.

“When I ask a question I expect an answer.” Ma-Ma somehow succeeded in towering over Matt despite him having at least half a foot on her. 

“Yes.” Matt barely managed to squeak out the word. 

“Good.” Ma-Ma folded her arms. “As of this moment, I own you. I chose you because I know you are completely alone and have no one to go to. No one to protect you if you cross me. If you stay in my good graces you will never have to worry about money again, if you fail to please, your body will not be found. Now, let’s go take a look at what your job entails.” Ma-Ma’s smile was the least friendly expression she’d made so far.

Matt was frozen and wide eyed. He never should’ve taken this job. He was going to die in a grimey basement and get his organs turned into pharmaceutical products or whatever the fuck. He ran through a horrible list in his head of what sort of illegal things he was about to see. Drugs? Kidnapping? Child labor? Organ harvesting? Sex trafficking? Could he really stay quiet about that?

“Let’s move.” Kay’s annoyed voice sounded from behind Matt, snapping him out of his thoughts. Matt stumbled forward as he was roughly shoved from behind. He pinwheeled his arms for a moment to balance himself before walking forward behind Ma-Ma, swallowing his dread as they passed through the swinging doors.

What Matt saw honestly relieved him. Hundreds of people filled the large room they had entered. Everyone was hunched over tables filled with glass beakers and tubes. There were Bunsen burners, syringes, pipettes, and, weirdly enough, inhalers, scattered over every flat surface available. Matt didn’t know a lot about drugs but he’d watched just enough Breaking Bad to be pretty certain these people were making drugs. He had no idea what kind, but figured he probably shouldn’t ask.

Ma-Ma kept walking, not bothering to spare any of the workers a glance. Matt was staring around the room in awe at the scale of it all as he walked. Was this how Peach Trees got so rich? He knew they were a successful company with the prescription drugs they created, but selling heroin or whatever the hell it was would explain just how shiny that lobby had been.

“Hey! Eyes forward.” Kay jabbed a thumb into the small of Matt’s back, causing him to stumble again. Matt nodded and turned his gaze to the floor, watching his feet as they made their way through the rows of tables towards the back of the room. He nearly ran into Ma-Ma when she stopped walking but snapped his head up in time to stop the collision.

They were standing in front of a huge door. It looked heavy and had one of those wheels they put on vault doors, at least that’s what Matt knew from tv. Ma-Ma spun the wheel, showing surprising strength for her small frame. The door swung slowly open and Matt’s eyes widened. The door was at least a solid foot of metal. He briefly wondered what could possibly be behind it if the drug lab hadn’t required that much security but quickly pushed the thought away as he followed Ma-Ma through the door into a cramped room with an equally heavy looking door opposite the vault one. Ma-Ma pulled out her key card and after a quick beep the second door swung open.

The three of them came out of the cramped room and into darkness. Matt squinted and tried to see into the room they’d entered but it was too dark to make anything out. Oh god, they were going to kill him here. This had all been a trick and now he was going to die cause he’d seen too much. Matt began panicking and was about to try to run for it when someone flicked a light switch and he was temporarily blinded as the fluorescent lights blinked on to illuminate more grey, water damaged walls.

“This is where you will spend most of your time.” Ma-Ma gestured at the room in general and Matt glanced around to take in what he’d be doing. The room was full of whirring machines and pipes. There was a water cooling system, a filtration system, a generator which he assumed was there in case of blackouts, and a few other things that weren’t labeled. He’d figure it out once he looked inside them. 

“It is crucial,” Ma-Ma continued talking, “That you do not let any of these machines stop functioning. You will need to be alert at all times to ensure there are no successful sabotage attempts.”

“Sabotage?” Matt snapped his attention back to Ma-Ma. “Who would sabotage this stuff?”

“This way.” Ma-Ma turned to the only other way out of the room they were in, a doorway tucked in the far corner. Matt followed curiously, still trying to figure out who would be trying to sabotage an underground water filter in a drug lab. 

The next room didn’t have any other exits but that wasn’t what Matt was focused on. The most notable feature of the room was the large circular pool in the center of the room. The pool was covered with a grate that stuck up about a foot from the floor. There was a hatch in the grate above a ladder descending into the pool. Matt stepped closer curiously and was immediately horrified. 

“There’s a person in there!” He rushed to the hatch and started trying to pull it open. “We need to get them out! They could drown!” The person was curled up and limp at the bottom of the pool, but Matt couldn’t waste time examining them, he needed to figure out how the hatch worked. He found a small locking mechanism and was about to get the grate open when Kay grabbed him under the arms and dragged him backwards. “What the hell?!” Matt struggled briefly before remembering these people had been threatening his life a few minutes ago. He stopped fighting.

“Take a closer look.” Kay spoke into Matt’s ear. Matt squinted down through the grate, confused and concerned. 

“Is, is something wrong with their legs?” He tried to stand to get a better view and thankfully Kay released him. Matt leaned out over the grate and rested his hands on it, peering down into the pool. There were lights on the floor of the pool so the figure was illuminated pretty well. Now that Matt was actually taking a closer look the person’s legs were, wrong. They looked fused together somehow. 

Behind him, Matt heard Kay laugh. “There’s nothing wrong with his legs. He doesn’t have any.” Kay stepped to the edge of the pool next to Matt. “Hey freak! Swim up here!” Matt turned to look at Kay incredulously, but quickly turned back to the pool when he saw movement. The figure uncurled and Matt gasped. Kay was right, they, or he, apparently, didn’t have legs. He had a tail. A fish tail. 

“Uh.” Matt stared slack jawed as the figure unfurled himself and swam to the surface of the tank. From the waist up he looked like a shirtless human man. He was alarmingly pale, with long red hair that hung around his face, and eyes the brightest shade of blue Matt had ever seen. From the waist down though, he was a different story. He had a scaly, yellow, fish tail that ended in a fin the same orange as his hair. The fin was torn in spots and had holes in it. Looking closer Matt could make out a pattern of lighter yellow speckles running up the sides of his tail, up his waist, over his shoulders, and down his arms. 

He was a mermaid, Matt realized. The man in front of him was a mermaid. He was staring at a mermaid. And the mermaid was staring back at all of them in fear.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Matt's second day on the job is somehow worse than his first one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a heads up, Matt gets his hand pretty cut up by some glass in this one. Nothing too graphic, but there is blood. Thank you all so much for the kudos and comment, you guys are what encourages me to keep writing!

Matt didn’t get much sleep that night. Every time he closed his eyes he was met with that painfully human face contorted in fear and then pain. He could still hear Kay’s awful voice. “If it gets ornery just zap it.” When he did get to sleep his dreams were full of the crackling of electricity and bloody swimming pools. Distorted screams muffled by water. He’d jolt awake, covered in sweat and gasping. He finally gave up, knowing he wouldn’t be getting any more sleep. 

Matt swung his legs over the side of his bed, sitting up with hunched shoulders. He blindly reached around his nightstand until he grabbed his phone. “Shit!” Matt squinted and frantically tried to turn the brightness down. Blinking away his temporary blindness, Matt checked the time. 3am. Five hours before his shift started. Matt groaned. He’d never been a morning person but the job had paid so well he’d decided it was worth it. Now he wished he’d just taken the shitty gas station job he got offered. 

Pushing his thoughts away, Matt grabbed his headphones and jammed them over his ears. He hit the play button on his phone slightly more violently than was necessary, but instantly relaxed as his music started playing. Knights of Ren wasn’t exactly soothing music, but the screaming death metal calmed Matt down nonetheless. He could do this. Grudgingly, Matt practiced some of the breathing his therapist had recommended. In for four, hold for four, out for four. 

Matt would never admit the breathing had helped, but after maybe half an hour, eight songs by the Knights, Matt was able to rationalize things. 

It’s not so bad, he told himself. He could do this. The mermaid was just an animal, he didn’t have- it didn’t have, he corrected himself, actual emotional intelligence. It was just a trapped animal that was able to look scared because it had a human face, but it wasn’t really a human looking back at him. Just a fish with a face. It couldn’t even talk! Kay had said as much when he’d asked. And he wouldn’t even have to hurt it if it didn’t try to break things, Matt reminded himself. If it was intelligent it would stop doing things that got it shocked, and if it wasn’t intelligent, he didn’t need to feel bad about shocking it. Problem solved.

Matt drifted off to sleep with Knights of Ren still blasting in his ears. Everything would be fine in the morning.

Everything was not fine in the morning. Matt’s alarm went off while he was still wearing his headphones, causing the obnoxious drone to nearly shatter his eardrums as it pulled him mercilessly from sleep. He jerked awake and threw his headphones across the room, only to watch as his still connected phone followed the headphones and crashed into the wall. Fuck.

Trudging across the room to check his phone for damage, Matt remembered he had work in two hours and would need to go back to Peach Trees and face the man, creature, in the tank, because his new boss had made it pretty clear he’d be killed otherwise. Fuck.

When he looked for breakfast Matt discovered he was out of frozen waffles. Waffle Wednesday was the one thing he had going for him, but last night he’d been too shaken up to go out for groceries, so here he was, waffleless on a wednesday. Fuck. Matt ate a bagel but it just wasn’t the same.

His car still had gas, so that was something at least, but Matt’s neighbor, who was actually pretty cute, saw him in his stupid orange vest. He’d laughed a little, so Matt had thrown his car keys at him. He’d missed, but he was pretty sure his neighbor was never going to talk to him again. Fuck. Hopefully he wouldn’t call the cops.

Surprisingly Matt made it to work with minimal road rage, only threatening to kill one driver and he’d had the windows up when he did it, so really it didn’t count. After a painfully long half hour commute he pulled into Peach Tree’s garage station and parked his car. He slammed the door a little too hard and locked it. Not like anyone would bother to steal it. He was surrounded by shiny top of the line models, making his ‘96 ford look even worse than it normally did. Matt left the garage muttering about douchebags with personal drivers, feeling his mood worsen. 

Matt groaned internally when he walked into the front lobby. Natalie raised one perfect eyebrow as if she was surprised to see him again. Matt gave her a dirty look and trudged to the elevator. He already had his key, he didn’t need to deal with her. Of course the elevator took forever to reach the first floor and Matt was forced to stand still, feeling Natalie’s eyes on the back of his neck the whole time. There were six elevators, but only one that would take him to the basement levels, and it also happened to be the only elevator to Ma-Ma’s floor, which meant it had to go down two hundred floors to take Matt to the basement. Fucking fantastic.

When the elevator doors finally chimed, Matt could feel himself sweating as he resisted the urge to turn around and curse at Natalie. He had the job now, but that didn’t mean Natalie wouldn’t rat him out to Ma-Ma or Kay. He really didn’t want to find out how serious those death threats had been. They’d felt pretty serious. He hurried into the elevator, fished his key card out of his pants pocket, and began his descent to sub level five.

As the elevator went down Matt felt apprehension swirl in his stomach. His decision last night to treat the mermaid as an unintelligent animal didn’t quite sit right with him now. Still, there wasn’t really much else he could do, so Matt squared his shoulders and stood tall as the elevator spat him out into the fucking meth lab. Or whatever the drug they were making was.

Walking past all the people at their stations was nerve wracking to say the least. Yesterday when he’d been with Ma-Ma everyone had been too busy not looking at her to bother looking at him. Today he could feel everyone staring as he walked past. He tried not to let it get on his nerves. To just let it go. His therapist said he needed to let more things go, but he never saw the point in not calling someone out if they were being rude. How else would he get them to stop? Still, getting into a fight with drug manufacturers seemed like a terrible idea, so he kept his head down and glared at the floor till he reached the big ass door to the mermaid room.

It turned out the big ass door was even heavier than it looked. Matt grimaced as he turned the wheel. He was pretty fit, his therapist had recommended exercise as a way to work out his anger, and he had to admit she was right about that at least. His goal was to be as shredded as Kylo Ren some day. He’d never actually seen him shirtless, but he knew he had at least an eight pack. Matt smiled as he pictured his idol swooping in and beating up Ma-Ma. He swung the door open and stepped into the tiny room, pulling out his key card to open the far door.

Matt stepped into the dark room and flicked on the light. He was once again greeted with damp grey walls and he felt his smile drop. Setting down his bag, he mentally chastised himself for daydreaming so much and began running through what he’d been told yesterday. 

Step one, check on the asset. Matt really didn’t want to do that. He cautiously poked his head around the corner into the room with the pool, just enough to get a glimpse of red hair and verify that the mermaid- asset, was still there. 

Step two, check on the fuse box. Apparently the asset had a habit of attempting to break the systems they had in place. Possibly a suicide attempt, they’d told him. They weren’t sure how he did it, but things were constantly going wrong in almost every system they had to maintain the pool. Matt popped open the grey box on the wall and checked out all the fuses. Nothing had blown during the night. 

Third, check the water filter. Matt walked over to the big grey tank they had set up. It was bubbling away, pulling water out of the main pool to filter or whatever, and then spitting it back in at the bottom of the pool. All good so far.

Step four, check the salinity. Matt walked over to the refractometer, checking the reading to make sure the pool was still between 3.4 and 3.7 percent salt. Everything looked fine there, level resting at 3.6 percent. 

Step five, check the water cooler. Matt checked that the temperature reading on the cooler was appropriate. It was never supposed to get above seventy degrees, and preferably should be in the low sixties. The temperature read 63 degrees and Matt nodded, satisfied. So far everything was working the way it should. Would he even have to do anything today?

Step six, check the pH. This was the part Matt was dreading. His instructions were very specific; fill one of the glass tubes with water from the pool. If the asset seemed angry or dangerous, simply use the lever they’d shown him to release electricity into the pool. Never let it last longer than twenty seconds, they didn’t want to do any permanent damage. Once he had the water, he simply needed to use a pH strip to measure the pH levels.

Matt gulped as he approached the pool room, tube in hand. He peered into it, trying to see where the asset was in the pool. He- it, must have been lower down than earlier, as Matt couldn’t see it. Matt cautiously entered the room, walking up to the pool as quietly as he could. He must not have been very quiet, since the mer- asset, was staring up at him from the bottom of the pool when Matt finally made it to the edge.

“Erm.” Matt cleared his throat. “Look, I gotta fill this with water.” He held up the tube. “So just, stay at the bottom and we won’t have a problem, okay?” With that he opened the hatch and positioned himself so he was crouched in front of it and could easily reach down and scoop out water into his tube. He was hesitant to do so, however, as the asset was swimming in slow circles under him, staring up with its impossibly blue eyes. 

Matt steeled himself and reached down to scoop the tube through the water. Immediately the asset lunged upwards with frightening speed. Matt let out an undignified squawk, falling backwards onto his ass. He didn’t notice the sharp pain in his hand until a second later. “Fuck!” Matt stared at his bloody hand. The tube had shattered when he’d clenched his fist in surprise and now shards of glass were stuck deep into his palm and fingers.

This brought him immediately to step seven, calling the emergency number Ma-Ma had given him in case of emergencies. He was pretty sure technically she had meant emergencies relating to the machinery malfunctioning, but this probably also counted. Either way, he knew she definitely wouldn’t want him calling a paramedic to walk through her drug operation. 

Grimacing in pain, Matt fished his phone out of his pocket. It was slightly awkward to do since his phone was in his right pocket, but his right hand was stuck full of glass so he had to use his left one. When he finally got it out he shakily typed in his password and found Ma-Ma’s emergency number in his contacts. He was really not looking forward to this conversation, but at the same time he was in too much pain to really care.

He could hear the phone ring as he held it to his ear. Ma-Ma picked up after only two rings, and she didn’t sound thrilled. “This is Ma-Ma. What the fuck are you calling for?”

“Ummm,” Matt suddenly wasn’t sure to say. “I think I, might, maybe, need to go to the emergency room?” He started silently praying she wasn’t going to kill him for this.

“What happened?” Ma-Ma sounded disinterested, then her voice picked up with urgency. “Is my little fish okay? Tell me the asset is unharmed.”

“It’s unharmed,” Matt confirmed. “Just an asshole. My hand’s full of glass.”

“Come up to the lobby.” Ma-Ma sounded disinterested again. “I’ll call you an ambulance. I sure I don’t need to remind you not to breathe a word of what happened to anyone?”

“Yeah, I know.” Matt nodded, even though she couldn’t see him. “I’ll just tell them I punched a window, won’t be the first time.”

“Good.” Ma-Ma was making it very clear she had better things to do than listen to him walk about his anger problems. “Tell them to bill Peach Trees. I’ll cover any injuries you sustain working with the asset.” She was silent for a moment, then, “Don’t make a habit of fucking up.” The line went dead before Matt could assure her he wouldn’t. 

Groaning, Matt carefully got to his feet. He swung the hatch shut again as forcefully as he could with only one hand. “Fucking asshole!” For a moment he debated shocking the asset, but then immediately felt sick for ever entertaining the idea. Instead he made his way out of the room, grabbed his bag by the door, and walked carefully back to the elevator, cradling his hand against his chest. He wondered briefly what they would do if anything malfunctioned while he was gone, but decided that was not his fucking problem.

By the time Matt got to the lobby he was feeling slightly woozy, and gratefully collapsed on the one couch in the lobby, too tired to give a shit if he got blood on it. He shut his eyes and tried to focus on anything other than the pain in his hand as he waited for the ambulance. 

“Excuse me?”

A voice drew Matt out of his haze and he opened his eyes to see Natalie staring down at him. Fucking great. 

“What?” Matt glared at her.

Natalie tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, some sort of nervous tick or something, Matt guessed. “Are you alright?” 

Matt’s glare deepened. “Do I fucking look alright?!”

To her credit, Natalie didn’t back away. “No, I suppose not. It’s just, I have a first aid kit behind the desk and was wondering if you needed any help.” She held up the plastic white box in front of Matt’s face. “Would you at least like me to take the glass out? I have tweezers.”

Matt blinked in surprise, trying to wrap his head around Natalie offering him help. Maybe she wasn’t such a bitch after all. “Uh, sure. Thanks.” Matt sure as hell wasn’t going to apologize, but he could swallow his pride and accept help while they waited for the ambulance. 

Natalie crouched in front of him and dug around in the first aid kit until she’d found the tweezers and a roll of bandages. “Give me your hand.” Natalie clicked the tweezers together and then began plucking out the largest chunks of glass. Matt hissed in pain as he felt them slide out, grimacing but not wanting to actually exclaim. That would just be embarrassing. 

Natalie had gotten through all of the large pieces, and was just starting on the harder to get ones when two paramedics rushed through the doors. They saw Matt and Natalie, and immediately came over to whisk Matt away to the ER. Matt thanked Natalie for her help and followed the paramedics into the back of the ambulance. The drive was a blur, Matt was still dizzy with pain and losing blood. Thankfully he didn’t have to wait more than a few minutes for a doctor to see him once they arrived. 

Getting the smaller pieces of glass out hurt like hell and Matt needed stitches on the larger of the cuts. Luckily, everyone bought his, I punched a window story, and stopped asking questions. After a little over an hour Matt was stitched and bandaged up, had taken a dose of codeine for the pain, and had been charged thirteen hundred dollars, which he happily told them to bill Peach Trees for. Fuck Peach Trees and fuck that fucking mermaid. The worst of it was that Matt had no one to pick him up from the ER and was forced to take the bus home. 

Matt had never been more grateful to collapse on his couch. The doctor had told him to take the rest of the day off, and that it was up to him if he went back in tomorrow, but to make sure not to use his right hand too much, in case he pulled the stitches. Matt called the non-emergency number for Peach Trees and tiredly let them know he wouldn’t be in for the rest of the day. He passed out as soon as he hung up, the codeine doing it’s job and pulling him into sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's blood day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two things. One, this chapter has non consensual blood removal, which might be one of the weirdest things I've ever had to type. It's not graphic or anything, but I hate medical stuff personally so I figured I'd let you all know.
> 
> Second, I'm going to do my best at whumptober this year. That either means I'm going to be busy doing that for a month, or I'm going to give up after three days and just work on chapter four of this fic. Either way I will be returning to this fic, it just might have a temporary hiatus. 
> 
> As always your support is everything to me. Thank you so much for all the kudos and comments!!

On the third day of his job, Matt wore gloves. The glove on his right hand barely fit over his bandages and by the time he’d made it to the pool room he was incredibly pissed. He stalked over to the pool to collect a water sample, glaring down at the mermaid, who was swimming slow circles towards the bottom of the pool. 

“Hey asshole!” Matt tugged his glove off, holding his hand over the pool. “Look what you did you fucking dick! Are you happy?!” The mermaid just swam slowly, only briefly glancing up at Matt when he yelled. “Hey! I’m talking to you, asshole!” Matt wasn’t sure what reaction he’d expected. The only time the mermaid had shown any emotion was when Matt had first seen it and it had seemed terrified. Clearly Matt had not been the source of its terror. He was actually kind of glad about that.

“You yelling at it or me?” A voice behind Matt made him jump and turn around, wide eyed. There was a man standing behind him with a large bag slung over his shoulder. He had a leather jacket and a short beard that circled around his mouth. What was that kind of beard called? Matt frowned, trying to remember. “You our hydraulics guy?”

Matt snapped himself back to attention. “Y-yeah. I think so.”

“You think so?” The man raised an eyebrow.

“I mean, I’m a technician for the,” Matt jerked his thumb behind himself at the pool. “Things. So I guess I’m the hydraulics guy. My name’s Matt.” He just really wanted to get through this conversation without having his life threatened. 

“Caleb.” The man didn’t bother with a handshake, which suited Matt just fine. “The sedative wear off him yet?”

“Sedative?” Matt frowned. He hadn’t been aware they sedated the mermaid. 

“Sure. They sedate it when you’re not here. Why do you think it doesn’t just break the system while you’re at home?”

Matt hadn’t thought of that. “Why don’t you just sedate him-it, all the time? Why have me here at all?”

Caleb laughed. “Look, I personally don’t give two shits about that thing, but apparently it’s bad for its health or something. In a life threatening way. So we found a balance and hired you to watch it when it’s awake.”

“Oh.” Matt wasn’t sure how he felt about that. “Wait, are you here to sedate it now?”

“Nah.” Caleb shook his head. “Today’s a blood day.”

“A blood day?” That didn’t sound good.

“Yeah. Did Kay not explain this shit to you. Man’s fucking useless.” Caleb shook his head again. “I have no idea why she trusts him with this shit.”

“With security?” Kay had seemed tough enough to be in charge of security.

“Oh please!” Caleb laughed. “Yeah he’s in charge of security.” He made air quotes with his hands when he said security. 

Matt was confused, and it must have shown on his face because Caleb elaborated. “He’s in charge of everything you see out there.” He gestured out towards the large room with all the drug manufacturing happening. Matt called it the drug room for lack of a better word. “Me?” Caleb continued. “I’m Ma-Ma’s actual second in command. Kay talks a big game, but I have Ma-Ma’s trust, and he doesn’t.” 

“Oh.” No one at Peach Trees had been this talkative with Matt so far. 

“Ma-Ma came with him to show you everything, didn’t she?” Caleb raised a questioning eyebrow and Matt nodded. “That’s cause she doesn’t trust him not to fuck it up. The man’s good with drug distribution, but not so much with training new hires, apparently.” Caleb shrugged. “Anyway, a blood day is when I come in and take some of that freak of nature's blood.”

“What do you need blood for?” Caleb seemed like the most likely guy to give Matt answers, and he was determined to get them.

“Oh, for slo-mo.” Clabe said it like it was obvious, then elaborated when it became clear it wasn’t obvious to Matt. “That’s what they’re making out there.” He gestured to the drug room again. “Slows down the user’s perception of time. Pretty cool stuff.” 

Matt nodded slowly, trying to look like he understood. “Cool.” It was not cool, it was fucking weird. Something straight out of science fiction. Still, there was a mermaid in the pool behind him, so who knew what was possible anymore.

“Anyway.” Caleb walked forward past Matt and over to the pool. “That’s enough chatting.” He glanced down into the pool, then promptly pulled down the lever controlling the electricity. The room was filled with a zapping sound and, a moment later, the sound of the mermaid screaming in pain. Matt grimaced. It sounded human when it screamed.

Caleb didn’t release the lever. The screaming continued, and Matt turned away to stare at the floor. When it still didn’t stop he put his hands over his ears. Finally, after an eternity that probably wasn’t longer than a minute, Caleb pushed the lever back, stopping the current of electricity and, mercifully, the screaming.

“Hey, bring the stretcher over here, will you?” Caleb gave Matt a friendly smile as though he hadn’t just been torturing someone. Something, Matt corrected himself. As awful as that had been, the mermaid was a something, it wasn’t human.

“What?” Matt was still a little shell shocked and hadn’t fully processed Caleb’s request. 

“The stretcher.” Caleb gestured over towards the far wall while he tugged open the hatch on top of the pool. Matt looked over and saw that, sure enough, there was what looked like a stretcher folded up against the wall. He hurried over, lifting it easily and carrying it back to Caleb.

“Great.” Caleb had pulled a collapsible catch pole out of his bag and was busy extending it. “Just set it up on the floor there.” Matt did as he was told, keeping an eye on Caleb all the while. The stretcher had two metal bars running up it lengthwise, with two much shorter bars running the width at either end that elevated it a few inches above the ground. It also had restraints. Matt felt his stomach drop. Whether the mermaid was human or not, this felt wrong.

Matt looked back at Caleb, who had finished extending the catch pole and now had it caught around the mermaid’s neck. The mermaid appeared unconscious as Caleb dragged it through the pool and over to the hatch. When it was within arms reach Caleb grabbed one of its pale shoulders and heaved it out of the water. He set it down on top of the stretcher and quickly strapped its arms down. Another strap was fastened around its waist before Caleb reached back into his bag.

Matt felt his stomach drop as Caleb pulled out an enormous IV bag, a length of tubing, and a syringe with one of those sterile orange caps. Caleb saw Matt watching and flashed him a grin while he set up the IV on a collapsible stand and attached it to the syringe with the tubing. 

Matt didn’t want to watch anymore. Instead, he focused on the mermaid. He’d never seen it this close before. Matt crouched down and cautiously put a hand on the mermaid’s forehead. Its skin felt human. Cold, but human. Matt was amazed. He brought his hand higher to run it through the mermaids hair. It was heavy with water, but still a beautiful bright copper color. Looking only at the mermaid’s head, at the way its hair splayed across the ground, at the slight frown on its lips, Matt could have easily believed it was human.

“It’s freaky, isn’t it.” Caleb’s voice snapped Matt out of his trance. “Feels like a corpse, all cold like that.” Matt chose not to ask how Caleb knew what a corpse felt like. He probably didn’t want to know the answer. Instead he nodded wordlessly. Caleb had finished setting up the IV and had gotten a rubber band tied around the mermaid’s arm to make the veins stand out. He looked away from Matt to rub an alcohol wipe over the mermaid’s arm. Matt turned away. He didn’t want to see the needle go in. This whole thing felt fucked up.

Matt walked over to the wall and sat on the floor. When he peeked over at Caleb and the mermaid he could see red blood flowing through the tube and into the bag, like a reverse blood transfusion. He shuddered. “How long does this take, exactly?”

Caleb shrugged from his place on the floor. “About two hours.” Matt paled. He was going to have to sit here and watch this for two hours? Fuck no!

Matt pulled out his phone and earbuds. Maybe he wasn’t supposed to be on his phone on the job, but fuck it. This was way too fucked up. He needed to zone out and ignore everything that was happening around him. Caleb didn’t comment, so Matt figured it wasn’t a big deal anyway.

Matt had heard about time flying when you were having fun. He hadn’t heard about time crawling by at a snail’s pace when you were being complicit to torture. You learn something new everyday apparently. Still, time was passing, since the bag was slowly filling with blood. Matt tried not to look at it though. He felt like he might be sick. Even Knights of Ren wasn’t calming him down like it usually did. This day could not get any fucking worse.

It took five minutes for Matt to be proven wrong. The first signs of life in the mermaid were subtle. Matt would have missed them entirely if he hadn’t been staring intently at the mermaid’s face when it happened. There was movement behind it’s eyelids. Matt thought he’d imagined it at first, but then its eyes slowly fluttered open. Matt’s own eyes widened in horror.

The mermaid seemed to take a moment to realize where it was and what was happening, but then its eyes traveled over to the blood bag and Matt could see them widen. All at once the mermaid started thrashing, struggling against the straps keeping it in place. It cried out wordlessly, making strange clicking and bubbling noises. It didn’t need to use words to get its message across. It wanted them to stop. It was afraid and in pain and it wanted them to stop.

Matt wanted to close his eyes but found he couldn’t look away. “Are you killing it?” He glanced briefly at Caleb. 

“Nah.” Caleb shook his head. “We’re not taking that much blood, and it can survive out of the water for a while, we just can’t let it get dry.” Matt didn’t like how Caleb said ‘we’. He didn’t want to be a part of this.

The mermaid must have heard Matt speak, because he-it, tilted its head back to look at Matt. Matt swallowed uncomfortably as they made eye contact. The mermaid continued making the bubbling and clicking noises and Matt was suddenly struck with the sense that it was talking to him. Or trying to talk to him at least. Matt couldn’t understand any of what was being said, but he really got the feeling the mermaid was speaking actual words, just in a different language. He also got the sense it was asking him for help. Matt shook his head helplessly, there was nothing he could do. Unfortunately, this caused the mermaid to tear up and begin to cry. Strangely shiny tears dripped down its cheeks as it stared desperately at Matt.

“I have to go to the bathroom!” Matt jumped to his feet and walked quickly across the room and out the door before Caleb could say anything. He had no idea where the bathroom was, but he couldn’t be in that room any longer. Matt wandered around the edge of the drug room until he actually found a bathroom. Once inside he locked the door behind him and sank down to the floor. The floor was probably gross as hell but Matt really didn’t have the energy to give a fuck.

“Fuck!” Matt screamed up at the ceiling. It didn’t help. He wanted to break something, wanted to punch and kick and scream and take his anger out on something. The only problem was, there was nothing he could use. He didn’t want to think about what would happen if he damaged Peach Tree property. He’d probably be lucky if all they did was fire him. He really wanted to just beat the shit out of Caleb but that was also out of the question. Caleb looked pretty damn strong and if he really was second in command Matt would probably be killed even if he won the fight.

So Matt sat on the gross bathroom floor, and glared at nothing. It didn’t help him feel better, but at least the mermaid wasn’t staring at him anymore. Not being in the room made him feel slightly less guilty, even if all he’d been doing was sitting on the floor in the tank room too. This was so fucked up. Should he quit? Could he quit? His bank account, job history, and Ma-Ma’s threat on his life all said no, he really couldn’t quit. So what was he supposed to do?

No matter how long Matt sat with his head in his hands, no solution came to him. Eventually he admitted defeat and left the bathroom. He really didn’t want to go back to the pool room, but he’d already been in the bathroom for almost half an hour and was pretty sure Caleb was going to start getting suspicious. Matt made the walk back as slow as he possibly could, but inevitably, he made it back to the pool room.

The first thing Matt noticed when he got inside was the quiet. The mermaid had stopped making noise. Now, instead of thrashing and shouting, the mermaid looked queasy and spaced out. Its eyes were half lidded and glassy, staring up at nothing. 

Matt sat back down against the wall. “What happened?” He looked between Caleb and the mermaid. 

“Oh, this always happens towards the end.” Caleb explained. “It gets woozy with blood loss.”

“Oh.” Matt felt guilt flood him for enjoying the silence. He went back to his phone, only glancing up occasionally to see the blood bag’s progress. 

Another twenty minutes passed before Caleb straightened up and announced that they were done. Thankfully he didn’t ask Matt for help as he packed everything up. Matt watched as Caleb unstrapped the mermaid and dumped it unceremoniously back into the pool, where it promptly sank to the bottom. Before he left, Caleb pulled one last thing from his bag. It was a packet of fish food. Caleb dumped in several large brown wafer looking things before nodding to Matt and leaving.

Matt sat dumbfounded against the wall for a little while longer. He would have rather spent his day at the emergency room again. This had been awful. Still, he had work to do.

Matt did his maintenance checks in a horrified daze. He tried not to think about how human the mermaid could seem. Tried to convince himself that it was just an animal and there was nothing wrong with all of this. It didn’t work. By the time Matt had finished with everything he wasn’t feeling any less guilty, just slightly less nauseous. At least that meant he’d be able to eat lunch. 

Matt went back into the pool room where he’d left his bag and pulled out his paper lunch sack. On a whim he walked over to look into the pool. He’d feel better if the mermaid seemed okay.

Unfortunately, the mermaid did not seem okay. It was fully conscious at least, but it looked somehow more pale than it had already and its eyes were red and puffy from crying. Matt cursed himself as he watched the mermaid grab one of the wafers Caleb had dumped into the pool. The mermaid grimaced before eating it, and Matt gagged. 

“Is that all they feed you?” He hadn’t meant to say anything out loud, but the words just slipped out. The mermaid turned quickly to look up at him before swimming to the bottom of the pool. “Wait!” Matt cursed himself for saying anything in the first place, but now he felt committed to a communication attempt. “Umm, I’m sorry.” This was so stupid. He had no reason to believe the mermaid could understand him. Surprisingly though, the mermaid looked back up at him, cautiously rising slightly higher in the pool. 

Matt sat down on the edge of the pool, balancing on the grate over top of it. He looked down at the mermaid again. “Those things seem pretty gross.” If you asked Matt later he would not have been able to tell you what compelled him to do what he did next. “I’ve got pb&j. Matt offered, pulling the sandwich out of his lunch bag. “You want half?”

The mermaid swam up until its head was above the water, and stared at Matt. Matt gulped, but it was too late to back out, so he held one half of his sandwich through the grate and prayed he wasn’t about to lose a finger. To his surprise and relief, the mermaid simply took the sandwich half from him. It stared at Matt for another moment before taking a cautious bite out of the sandwich. Whatever they’d been feeding the poor guy clearly hadn’t been good because it devoured the sandwich like it was the best thing it had ever tasted. That was slightly alarming since it was made with white bread and the cheapest peanut butter and jam Matt could find. 

“Woah. It’s not that good.” Matt stared with wide eyes as the sandwich was demolished. “You uh, you were hungry, huh.” It wasn’t really a question. “I, uh, I mean I can bring another one for you tomorrow if you want?” Why the fuck was he offering to bring it a sandwich? Matt mentally berated himself. He was here to keep the pool running, not make friends with this thing. Still, he couldn’t stop himself. “I’ll bring an extra one for you tomorrow.” Matt awkwardly walked away from the pool and ate his half of the sandwich in silence. He spent the rest of his shift doing his best to ignore the mermaid.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Matt shares his lunch with a surprisingly vocal mermaid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! Sorry this fics hiatus was so long, but seasonal depression is a bitch, so here we are. This chapter's a little shorter than the others but I'll try to get started on the next one right away. As always, let me know what you think in the comments. And happy holidays!

True to his word, Matt brought two sandwiches the next day. He only hesitated for a few moments outside the imposing doors to Peach Trees before walking in and heading straight for the elevator. He glanced over at Natalie while he waited, but she was busy typing away at her computer. Matt had nothing to say to her anyway, so he just went through his usual routine of keeping his head down until he made it to the pool room.

Matt set his bag down and turned to go through his usual maintenance checklist. So far the mermaid hadn’t made any sabotage attempts and he was still wondering how exactly it did it. Everything was still functioning and the water was acceptably cold and salty. Now he just needed to check the ph of the water. He hadn’t done that since Wednesday, when he’d gotten his hand sliced open. He’d meant to do it yesterday, but… He shuddered, not wanting to think about what had happened.

Instead Matt tugged his gloves on and returned to the pool room with one of the tubes. “Hey.” He felt compelled to say something as he approached the pool. “Look, I need to fill this with water, okay? Last time I did this, you didn’t really cooperate, and I’d appreciate it if you’d just let me do this and move on.” The mermaid just stared at Matt, giving no indication whether or not it had heard him. Matt opened the grate anyway and dipped the tube in the water. The mermaid stayed where he, it, was, and Matt was able to collect his water sample and close the grate again.

“Thanks.” Why was he thanking it for not scaring him? Whatever, he was almost done with everything he had to do for the day. Apparently they were going to pay him to just babysit the mermaid for most of the day in case it tried to break anything. Matt stuck a ph strip into the tube and waited for it to change color. It turned light green and Matt threw it away, satisfied the water remained acceptably neutral. 

All told Matt’s maintenance checks took less than an hour. Unless something broke he was free to just sit against the wall on his phone for the remainder of his shift. Matt sank down to the ground, pulling his earbuds out of his pocket. “You know,” He spoke loud enough he assumed the mermaid could hear, “It would almost make my shifts easier if you did break something, this is gonna be pretty boring.”

Matt pressed play on his phone and shut his eyes as his ears were filled with death metal. He’d eat around noon, and until then he planned to just shut the world out and not think about how batshit insane his life had become in less than a week. This whole thing was crazy, surreal, unbelievable, but here he was. Sitting in a secret basement drug factory with a mermaid. He let out a loud huff of air and forced himself to stop thinking and just enjoy the music. 

This worked for approximately half an hour, until Matt became aware of a high pitched beeping sound. It sounded like a smoke detector, or some sort of alarm. Alarm? Shit! Matt threw his headphones off and then quickly clamped his hands over his ears against the noise. He hurried to the maintenance room, and sure enough, the fuse box was smoking. Matt cursed and set to work fixing things. He turned the power off, though much to his dismay, the alarm kept wailing. Matt then hurriedly pulled out the burnt out fuse. He pulled open one of the cabinets on the floor and found a new fuse, which he carefully installed, coughing and waving his hand to disperse the smoke. 

Mercifully, the alarm stopped when Matt restored the power. Less mercifully, he could already feel a headache brewing. Grimacing, Matt checked that everything else was working correctly before returning to the pool room. He approached the pool and looked carefully inside. The mermaid was staring up at him, like it had been waiting for him.

“Was that you?” Matt jerked his thumb over his shoulder towards the equipment room. He wasn’t certain, but he could swear the mermaid nodded at him. “I know I said I was bored, but I didn’t actually want you to break something.” The mermaid looked a little sad at that. “How’d you do that, anyway?” Matt changed the subject. He hadn’t been expecting an answer so when the mermaid rose to the surface of the pool and made more of those bubbling, clicking sounds, he stepped back in surprise.

“Uh, I can’t understand you.” Matt frowned a little. The mermaid was defnitely speaking to him, but he had no idea what the fuck it was saying. “Do you, uh, speak english?” It was a stupid question, but he didn’t know what else to say. He was answered with a few more bubbling noises, so Matt just shook his head. “Look, I’m gonna go sit back down. Don’t break anything else, please.” 

He walked away and jammed his earbuds back in. Why had he said please? Could the mermaid even understand what he was saying? Whatever. Maybe he’d ask at lunch if he could understand him. Matt chose not to correct himself and call him it. The mermaid was definitely a him. 

Matt dicked around on his phone until his stomach said it was time to eat. It was almost one at that point, so he dug his sandwiches out of his bag and approached the pool. “Hey, I brought you a sandwich today.” He sat down on the grate over the pool and watched the mermaid eagerly swim to the surface. “It’s just pb&j again.” He shrugged. “It’s really not that good, but you seem to like it, I guess.” He reached through the bars, squishing the sandwich slightly to make it fit. The mermaid stared at him for just a moment before taking the sandwich and quickly starting eating it.

Matt laughed a little. “Don’t eat so fast. I don’t want to think about what Ma-Ma would do if I let you choke to death on a sandwich.” The mermaid stilled as soon as Matt said ‘Ma-Ma’. He hunched his shoulders and curled in on himself before scarfing down the rest of the sandwich and diving to the bottom of the pool. Matt stared after him. Should he apologize? He hadn’t done anything wrong. It wasn’t his fault the mermaid was weirdly sensitive. Then again, Matt reasoned, he might be sensitive too if he were being tortured in a basement.

Shaking his head, Matt went back over to the wall and sat back down to finish his sandwich, resigned to staring at his phone for another four hours. The time passed painfully slowly but eventually Matt was able to pack up and leave. It was finally Friday, which meant he could sleep in the next day. He had the whole weekend off. Two whole days without having to think about Peach Trees, or Ma-Ma, or captive mermaids. Matt couldn’t fucking wait. 

Unfortunately for Matt, his weekend didn’t start out so great. Matt dreamed he was drowning. He thrashed against the water, but it was so thick, like swimming through syrup. His arms were too heavy and he felt himself sinking lower and lower. His lungs burned, he needed air! Matt gasped, but all that came in was freezing water. He couldn’t breath. Just as Matt’s vision started to fade he saw a figure swimming towards him. For a moment he thought he was saved, but then he saw the figures fish like tail and dread coursed through him. 

The mermaid pushed Matt further down, as Matt desperately choked and gasped for air. He felt like he might vomit if he could only force the bile past all the water that kept filling his throat. Darkness took over more and more of Matt’s vision as he felt the fight leaving him. The last thing he saw was bright red hair and even brighter blue eyes, before everything went black.

Matt woke up gasping and covered in sweat. He dry heaved for a moment before flopping back onto his mattress. His dreams never fazed him, but for some reason he couldn’t shake off the sense of dread this one had caused. Matt rolled over with a groan to check the time. 2:26 am. Fucking fantastic. There was no way he was getting back to bed after that. Not right away at least. He sat up and dragged his hand over his face, blinking the sleep from his eyes.

Resigned to his fate, Matt left his bedroom. He needed to clear his head, and he was pretty sure he’d need more than just Knights of Ren to do it. Matt wandered to the living room, which he had turned into a sort of home gym. It wasn’t much, just a punching bag hanging from the ceiling and some weights piled in the corner, but it was better than having to see all the idiot meat heads who went to the gym. Plus Matt had been banned from both gyms near his house after getting into fist fights with said meat heads. 

Matt did three sets of ten jumping jacks to get warmed up before he started swinging his fists. He knew he really should do a little more than that to warm up, but fuck, he just really needed to punch something right now. He started out just throwing random punches before he got himself into a rhythm of jab punch squat. He worked up a sweat pretty quickly and kept going until his thighs started burning. 

Stumbling backwards after his last set, Matt collapsed onto the couch, panting. It was almost four am, but he really didn’t want to go back to bed. Couldn’t risk having that dream again. Instead he made his way to the kitchen and chugged a glass of water. He needed a shower, he probably smelled bad, and the cold water would help clear his head. Matt made his way to the bathroom still in a daze. If this happened every night it was going to be a long fucking weekend.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just guys being dudes. Also known as; Matt totally forgot he had plans for the day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the good news is I've already started writing the next chapter, so hopefully the wait won't be as long this time. There isn't any bad news. That's the only news. Thank you guys so much for your continued support!

Matt woke up to a loud banging reverberating in his head. He opened his eyes and groaned as his surroundings came into view. He was sprawled on the living room floor with no memory of how he’d ended up there. The last thing he remembered was showering and then stumbling to the couch. Apparently he’d never made it. 

Matt squeezed his eyes shut as the banging sounded again. This time he was awake enough to realize it was coming from outside his head, though he still wasn’t sure where. All his limbs creaked in protest as he peeled himself off the floor to investigate. 

“Heeeeeey, Maaaaatt!!!” 

Shit. Matt knew that voice. He hurried towards the front door, anymore yelling was going to make his headache worse. Matt unlocked the door and roughly tugged it open.

“What the fuck, Tim?”

“Dude.” Tim was leaning against the door frame as if he had every right to be there screaming for Matt this fucking early. “It’s the second Saturday of the month.”

“So?” Matt’s headache was worsening by the second and he really didn’t have the head space for Tim. It wasn’t that Tim was a bad guy or anything, he was one of the few people from Matt’s last job that wasn’t afraid of him. Which was pretty impressive since Matt had thrown him into a wall after he bad mouthed the Knights of Ren. 

“So?” Tim had the nerve to sound confused by Matt’s anger. “So today’s our day to play smash bros. I brought beer and everything.” Here Tim held up a six pack Matt hadn’t noticed in his hand. “C’mon man, don’t tell me you’re canceling on me again.” 

“Tim we meet at one!” Matt tried to run a hand through his hair only to get it caught in a particularly bad snarl. “Why the fuck are you here this early?”

“Dude, it’s one thirty. I texted you to say I’d be late.” Tim frowned. “Are you okay? You don’t look so good.” Tim invited himself in before Matt could answer. “Are you getting sick?” Tim headed into the kitchen and set the beer down on the counter before shoving himself in Matt’s space and putting a hand on his forehead. 

Matt smacked Tim’s hand away and practically growled at him. “I’m not sick, get the fuck out of my face!” Tim’s face fell and he took a step back.

“Sorry man, I’m just worried about you.”

Damnit. Matt pinched his nose and focused on taking a few breaths. His therapist had better be fucking proud. “Look, why don’t you set up the tv and shit. Just give me a few minutes, okay?” Despite his annoyance, Matt didn’t really want to chase Tim off. Ma-Ma had been right when she’d said he was alone. Tim was the closest thing he had to a friend and Matt could only really stand to see him once a month to play video games and drink beer. 

Matt stumbled into his bedroom and changed into yesterday’s pants before searching for a clean shirt. There was a laundry basket in the corner that seemed to contain clean clothes he hadn’t put away instead of dirty clothes that needed to be washed. He found a faded Knights of Ren shirt and pulled it on for no other reason than to slightly annoy Tim. 

Matt snatched up his glasses and slipped into the bathroom. He splashed some cold water on his face and then put his glasses on. A quick look in the mirror told him his hair was a lost cause for now. Fuck it, it wasn’t like Tim was gonna care, and if he did, Matt could just kick his ass.

“Okay.” Matt re-entered the living room. “I’m ready, but you better have brought good beer with you.”

Tim looked up from the couch where he was choosing his character. “Don’t I always?” 

“No.” 

Matt flopped down next to Tim and picked up the second controller. Apparently Tim had had the nerve to be player one even though they were in Matt’s house. Matt took a breath through his nose and decided not to mention it. Tim’s beer had better turn out to be fucking spectacular. 

Two hours later Matt was feeling pleasantly buzzed, and was on a winning streak. Unfortunately for Matt, Tim seemed to think that meant it was the perfect time to try and get Matt to open up to him.

“So…” Tim began slowly, side eyeing Matt. “You wanna talk about it?”

“Talk about what?” Matt gripped the controller tighter as he narrowly avoided falling off the stage. 

“About whatever’s up with you.” Tim lightly elbowed Matt in the side.

“Hey!” Matt jabbed him back with his own elbow much harder than necessary. “Quit fucking distracting me. Anyway there’s nothing going on.” 

“Yeah right.” Tim snorted. “You just woke up at one p.m. looking like shit because things are going great. I see how it is.”

Matt narrowly won the match and leaned back into the couch. “There’s nothing going on okay? Anyway it’s complicated.” He glared at the tv screen as it announced his victory. 

“So there is something!” Tim grinned triumphantly. “C’mon man, you can tell me. It’s good to get things off your chest, y’know?” 

Matt heaved out a sigh. “Isn’t that what my therapist is for? Come on, let’s just play another round.” Matt made no move to actually start another game. 

“Well, yeah, I mean I guess.” Tim shrugged. “But we’re bros. And there’s some things you gotta talk to your bros about, right? So what is it? You get fired again or what?”

“I’m not your ‘bro’.” Matt shook the last drops of his beer from the can. “And anyway, I can’t tell you. It’s…. Fuck, It’s really complicated.” Matt glared into his now empty can. Tim really did seem like he wanted to help, but Matt couldn’t exactly just tell him he was helping torture a mermaid to manufacture drugs. “What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done for money?”

Tim cocked his head slightly and pursed his lips. “For money?” Matt nodded. “I don’t think I’ve ever done anything for money. At least not that I can remember.” He trailed off. “Oh! This one time, it wasn’t for money or anything, but I hid a dead fish in my little sister’s ex boyfriend's car!”

“Dude what?” Matt turned to give Tim his full attention. “Holy shit!”

“He cheated on her.” Tim explained. “And broke her heart. And nobody breaks my baby sister’s heart. So-” He broke off to laugh a little. “So I told her we were gonna get revenge. Cause he had this really nice car, he was super proud of it. But he always kept the glove box full of junk, tissues and sandwich wrappers and shit. So I drove her down to the lake and we caught a fish. Just a little one though, so it would be hard to find. It was like, I dunno, this big.” Tim held his hands apart to illustrate the size. “Like, six inches or something.”

Matt nodded. It was pretty obvious where this was going, but stil, this was fucking great.

“So she’s been watching his social media, and he’s taking the girl he cheated on her with out on a really fancy date the next night. So we put the fish in a plastic bag and leave it in a sunny spot in the backyard. And then the next night, while they’re at this restaurant, we find his car in the parking lot, right?” Tim stopped to laugh again. “And I did that thing with the clothes hanger to open the window-”

“Wait, wait, wait. That thing actually works?” 

“I know right?!” Tim just kept laughing. “So we get into the car, we dig some of the trash out of the glove box and then dump the fish out of the bag and into it. And then we reburry it with trash. And it smelled so fucking bad, dude. It was awful! So we rolled the window back up and left. And then she kept checking his instagram, cause he’d been like, live streaming or some shit during the whole date. And his date fucking puked when they got back in the car!”

“No!” Matt couldn’t not laugh. This was the best he’d felt in a while. “Are you serious?”

“One hundred percent dude, I swear.” Tim buried his face in his hands and gasped for breath between bouts of laughter. 

“Jesus christ dude, that’s just evil.” Matt wiped tears from his eyes. “I didn’t think you had something like that in you.”

“Yeah.” Tim grinned as he got his laughter under control. “Yeah. I don’t feel bad about it though. Nobody fucks with my baby sister.”

“Yeah apparently not dude, shit.” Matt couldn’t help grinning himself. 

“Anyway.” Tim seemed to have calmed himself. “Why’d you ask? Are you doing something bad? Do you need help man?”

“What?” Matt shook himself, taking a second to realize what Tim was talking about. “Oh. Right. Umm, no, I just. I think the company I work for now might actually be evil.” Shit. He hadn’t meant to say that. Matt cursed himself as he frantically backpedaled. “I mean, like, nestle doesn’t believe water is a human right and shit. That kind of stuff.”

Tim nodded knowingly. “Look Matt, the world’s pretty fucked up. And I’ll be honest, I’m impressed someone hired you at all. No offense.” He held up his hands disarmingly. “I’m just saying, you’ve kinda got a record. So, don’t feel bad about what the people up top are doing, that’s not on you, y’know? Besides, it’s not like there’s anything you can do about it.” Tim clapped Matt on the back.

“Yeah.” Matt felt his good mood sour. “Nothing I can do.” 

“You want to play another round?” Tim gestured towards the tv. 

“No, I’m actually pretty tired, I think I should call it quits.” It was true, Matt felt a sudden exhaustive weight on his shoulders. “I have some stuff I need to get done anyways.” He did not have stuff to get done.

“Sure thing.” Tim grinned amicably before standing up from the couch and stretching. “Look, I’ll see you next month, but if you ever want to catch up between then and now, you have my number. I’m always willing to go out and get a few drinks with you, Matt.”

“Thanks.” Matt forced a small smile onto his face. “I appreciate that.” There was no way he was going to take Tim up on his offer, but Tim didn’t need to know that. Matt showed Tim to the door, keeping the smile plastered on his face until Tim had reached the elevator. Matt closed the door quickly without slamming it and sank down to the floor. Tim was right, there was nothing he could do to change his situation. It wasn’t his fault. So why did he feel so guilty?


End file.
